TdF Stage 17 – O’Dirty finally gets a mention

In 10 years of running this competition I have finally achieved something. I was the biggest mover of the day up 59 places to break into the top 100! Thanks to a great breakaway from Primoz Roglic who took the stage that crested the Galibier. I was out for dinner with a few friends last night, one of which was The Dark Horse, who may be iving up to her name as she leapt into 5th place. I was trying not to see any coverage, but she was getting a bit excited watching the Tour Tracker on my phone. Now I know why, with both Roglic and Uran, the TdF Dark Horse, in her team she cleaned up on the points last night. Some other contenders came into play last night as well, with previous competition winner, Superfish, showing his hand. And with a full house of Froome and Matthews he now looks to be in the box seat.

It was a cracking stage, with Matthews once again getting the intermediate sprint points to close the gap to Kittel to just 9 points. It was shaping up for a classic show down on the Champs Elysee, with Kittel still favorite to take the Green jersey. That was until Kittel crashed after 20km. Interestingly Matthews team mate Barguil was also involved. Surely there was no nefarious involvement from the Breton. The main contenders attacked each other with Froome following wheels until eventually there were a few chinks found with Aru and Yates, both losing a bit of time and places. Dan Martin tried to get back some of the time he lost in yesterday split and succeeded in overhauling Yates, but lost another 30 seconds to the main favorites. Froome, Uran and Bardet look to be favorites for the podium in Paris, although with tonight’s mountain top finish on the Col D’Izoard anything could still happen.

The Heartthrobs duo kept their stranglehold on the top of the table, with Mrs Spunker hanging on to third. There was no change at the foot of the table with Dai the Kilt gamely hanging on to the Lantern Rouge spot.